HERTS

Autograph Manuscripts of two translations by John Curling: Count Rostopchine's 'The Truth upon The Great Conflagration of Moscow 1813' and 'Observation on the Campaign in the Netherlands', with printed version of latter.

Author: 
John Curling ['J*** C******'] (1784-1863), JP, of Offley Holes and Gosmore, Herts [Count Fedor Wassiljavitch Rostopchine, Governor of Moscow; Napoleon Bonaparte; Retreat from Moscow, 1812]
Publication details: 
Manuscript translation from Rostopchine dated 'Hitchin 1856', second manuscript translation undated. First pamphlet printed in Hitchin by C. Paternoster, Sun Street; 1858. Second pamphlet (by 'J*** C******') by C. & T. L. Paternoster; undated.
£850.00

The two translations, in the same original red leather notebook, totalling 226pp., 12mo. Good, on lightly-aged paper, in worn binding. The first translation in the volume is a fair copy, without corrections, of a work published in French in 1823 as 'La V?rit? sur l'Incendie de Moscou; par le Comte Rostopchine' (Paris: Ponthieu). Neither Curling's nor any other English translation appears to have been published. The second translation (the printed version of which is the first of the two pamphlets) is heavily corrected, with seven pages of additions loosely inserted.

15 items relating to Lieut. A.H. Ross's service in the Second World War as Platoon Commander in the Hertfordshire Battalion of the Home Guard, including Platoon photographs, Special Army Orders, service certificate, letter from Lt-Col. H. K. O'Kelly.

Author: 
Alexander Howard Ross (1880-1965), Commissioner, Southern Province of Sierra Leone, 1920-1928, Platoon Commander, Hertfordshire Battalion, Home Guard, 1940-1944 [Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Kane O'Kelly]
Publication details: 
Items from the War Office, London, and Hertfordshire. From 1940 to 1944.
£750.00

The fifteen items in fair condition, lightly aged and worn, laid down or pinned to leaves removed from an album. Items One to Three: three black and white landscape photographs, each around 15 x 20 cm. The first photograph, captioned 'November 1940', shows Ross standing in a field, in front of a platoon in two columns, shouldering rifles with bayonets. The second photograph, captioned '7. C. Coy of Batt., Herts Home Guard 1943', shows twenty-six officers, in three rows, in front of the entrance to a municipal building. The front row, seated, consists of seven senior officers with batons.

Lithographed document entitled 'Estimate For the Erection of Proposed New Isolation Hospital at Leavesden Asylum, near Watford, Herts, for the Managers of the Metropolitan Asylum District.'

Author: 
Captain C. E. Dance, R.E.R., Surveyor to the Board [Metropolitan Asylums Board; Leavesden Asylum]
Publication details: 
September 1902. Rich & Co. Electrographers & Lithographers, 12 Furnival St. E.C.
£100.00

Unbound and stapled. Sixty-four pages. Dimensions of leaf roughly thirteen inches by eight wide. Lithographed facsimile handwriting throughout. Aged and with some wear to extremities, but text clear and entire. 'Clerk of Writ Copy' in red ink manuscript at head of first page. An interesting and informative document, compiled on behalf of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, giving in detail the specifications for builders tendering for the contract for the erection of the new hospital.

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